


Of Love and Psychopaths

by EvvieJo



Series: Groves & Shaw [4]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Shaw vs. socializing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvvieJo/pseuds/EvvieJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's something that could make a party better for Shaw, it's knowing someone is about to get murdered. Especially if there are other things she'd rather have her mind taken off of. Like feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Love and Psychopaths

**Author's Note:**

> My knowledge of the stock market and related things is virtually non-existent, so I hope I didn't bullshit too much based on the little research I did.  
> Enjoy!

Root flipped her hair and looked demurely over her shoulder.

“How do I look?,” she asked coyly.

Putting another potato chip into her mouth with one hand, and never stopping scratching Bear behind his ears with the other, Shaw glared at Root. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the view – Root looked pretty spectacular in her slinky burgundy-colored dress that left her shoulders and upper back deliciously bare – though the reason for her dressing up caused her as much chagrin as anything possibly could. Or maybe it was just annoyance, she couldn’t tell. She was convinced, however, that she would have much more fun tearing that sexy dress off of Root than going to that party in the penthouse apartment.

“Good,” Shaw replied finally. “Just don’t make me say it again. Saturday night at our neighbors’ is torture enough.”

Root made puppy dog eyes at her and climbed the bed on all fours, stopping inches away from Sameen.

“It’s what we should do, Sam, if we don’t want them to think we’re some kind of psychopaths.”

“We are,” Shaw pointed out, “some kind of psychopaths. With or without them thinking that.”

“Exactly.” Root grinned. “Better to keep a low profile.”

If her hands were free, Shaw would probably consider strangling her there and then. Of course, she’d regret it seconds later, but sometimes she was tempted.

“I hate you,” she said, trying to convey as much of her contempt for the idea of socializing as she could manage with her facial expression.

“You love me, you just don’t want to admit it,” Root told her teasingly and froze. The smile on her face faltered and died as she searched Shaw’s gaze.

There was still a trace of that irritation from earlier in the way Shaw looked at her, but there was also another component to it, a more vague one, much trickier to identify. They stared at each other for an awkward moment, bewildered that they could still be uncomfortable with each other.

It took Root a moment to force herself to move away from Shaw, slip off the bed and head for the door.

“You should get ready,” she said from the threshold and left the room.

Bear lifted his head in confusion, knocking Shaw’s hand off and looking at her quizzically. She patted him absent-mindedly, shoving aside the half-emptied bag of chips. She should get ready, she knew that, so she got to her feet begrudgingly. It might have been impossible for her to confirm what Root had said, especially given naming feelings had always been difficult, but this was something she could actually do for her.

She retrieved the dress she’d brought from her apartment for the occasion from her almost empty part of the closet. It was black and simple, and she thought she’d look inadequate next to Root. Or maybe it was just this thing people did when they found someone attractive, and thought lesser of themselves in comparison.

Changing from her regular clothes and into the dress took her less than a minute, and she was just combing her fingers through her hair, when the door opened suddenly.

“We have a new number,” Root said. She still didn’t seem to be quite at ease; her face was drawn and lacked her characteristic smile.

“Does that mean no party?,” Shaw asked hopefully, trying to ignore the tiny pang of guilt in her chest the sight of Root like that caused her.

“I should probably say that we have a name,” Root corrected herself, and added, seeing Shaw’s surprise. “Lawrence Keeton.”

Sameen’s confusion only grew.

“It’s our neighbor. That’s why we got his name, instead of his number,” Root said. “Not to waste time checking.”

Rolling her eyes, Shaw stepped into her high heels and sighed.

“Guess the party’s gonna be killer.”

Root almost laughed. Almost.

 

The trip to the top floor of the apartment building was short, silent and unusually uncomfortable. Sameen didn’t know how to dispel the awkwardness without having to bring up her least favorite subject, so she kept her mouth shut, armed with a bottle of expensive wine they were giving their hosts. And thinking this was only the beginning of a hellish night made her want to smash her head open with that bottle.

As soon as Root rang the bell and footsteps sounded on the other side, they forced their features to rearrange into expressions of friendliness and enthusiasm. If Shaw didn’t know better, she would totally fall for Root’s wide cheerful smile. By now, though, she could notice the minute details that differed in her genuine and fake expressions.

Nancy Keeton greeted them warmly at the door, pulling first Root, then Shaw into a one-armed embrace, and giving each a kiss somewhere to the left of their faces.

“Come on in, make yourself at home!,” she chimed happily, waving her hand with such swing that the wine in the glass she was holding made a tiny tsunami.

The open living space of the penthouse apartment was filled with close to a dozen people. For a moment, Shaw thought that half of them were Nancy’s relatives, but at second glance she decided they all must have been clients of the same beauty salon and probably shopped at the same places, since their resemblance was in hair, make-up and clothes. The other half were men, who soon turned out to be, almost exclusively, Larry Keeton’s colleagues, while the women were their wives or fiancées.

Shaw tried to remember all the highly ordinary names Nancy introduced her friends with and nodded with a smile at everyone, but she paid the minimal amount of attention to the people. She was getting impatient in part because their new number was nowhere in sight. And then, her mind was still stuck at Root and what she had said earlier.

Finally, when everyone had been introduced and conversations were being struck around the room, the door to the roof terrace opened, and Lawrence Keeton joined the party, holding a cell phone in one hand. He was a man in his late thirties who looked much like a lifesize Mattel product, maybe with the exception of the delicate threads of silver in his perfectly styled hair. The cut of his suit pants and shirt was impeccable, and it was quite clear this was an attire he was used to wearing on a daily basis.

“Everyone, it’s official,” he announced, lifting his hands in an almost religious gesture, “today isn’t just an occasion to have some great wine. The board has made its decision and they are promoting me to chief small cap operations officer!”

Shaw’s knowledge of the stock market wasn’t enough to make out what exactly this meant, beyond being a possible motive for murder, but if Nancy’s enthusiastic shriek was any indication, this was something big.

“I knew it!,” Nancy cried out, running up to wrap her arms around her husband’s neck. “I knew they would choose wisely!”

A general choir of congratulations started among the guests. The chaos made it more difficult to pick out suspects, but on the other hand, the suspects were less likely to spot Root and Shaw observing them.

It wasn’t especially challenging to pick out two main candidates for the night’s murderer. The first one was a young woman with the face of a china doll, the only one who wasn’t introduced as anybody’s wife or girlfriend, but as Larry’s executive assistant. She was eyeing the Keetons with her red-lipsticked mouth formed in a disgruntled pout.

Root made her way through the crowd discretely towards Sameen and indicated the assistant.

“Look out for Laurel,” she said under her breath.

“You mean the assistant? I know.” Shaw took another look at everyone gathered. “And check out George over there.”

The man she singled out had been introduced as one of Lawrence’s closest co-workers, and was now making desperate attempts at appearing happy for his friend. Unfortunately for him, his acting skills were incomparable to Root’s.

The congratulations went on for several minutes, until everyone returned to their abandoned drinks and small talk. Meanwhile, Nancy glued herself to her husband, staring adoringly up at him, and when she remembered her neighbors hadn’t had the pleasure of officially meeting him, she dragged him across the room.

“Larry, these are Samantha and Sameen,” she gestured towards them, “the new neighbors I was telling you about.”

“The two Sams, huh?,” Larry asked, extending the hand that hadn’t been claimed whole by his wife to Root, and then to Shaw. “Nancy was really excited when she found out there were new ladies she could gossip with in the building.”

“Nancy made us feel very welcome,” Root said. “And, I suppose we should congratulate you. Some big shot position?”

Even before Lawrence got into the details of managing the stocks of small businesses Shaw had an urge to knock him or his blindingly white teeth out. To keep both her hands occupied, she held on tight to the wine glass Nancy had presented her with earlier and to Root’s arm. Someone had better commit that murder soon, or she was going to do it for them.

“We should make a toast!,” she proposed, interrupting the discussion that Larry was all too eager to continue for the next century.

She didn’t have to wait long for Nancy to catch onto that idea. The hostess looked around for the last full glass of wine standing on the high kitchen counter.

“To Larry, the up-and-coming star of Wall Street!,” she chimed, rising her glass and giving the other to him.

“To Larry!,” everyone echoed.

Lawrence bowed his head humbly, but didn’t lift his glass to drink.

“Thanks again, guys, but I’m sorry, I can’t drink the toast with you.” His expression was genuinely apologetic. “My doctor told me absolutely not to mix those antibiotics with alcohol.”

He untangled himself from his wife to set the untouched glass of wine on the bar that separated the living area from the kitchen.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey, I completely forgot!,” Nancy said with a giggle. “That nasty laryngitis! Thank goodness you got your voice back!”

There was a loud crash that turned all heads towards Laurel. She must have put her wine glass down on the coffee table with too much force, making the delicate glass crack open on impact. She apologized shortly for the damage and half-heartedly offered her help cleaning up, though her face showed blatant disdain whenever she looked at Nancy.

Root and Shaw exchanged a glance, forgetting for the moment their own personal drama. Using the commotion as a distraction, while Nancy was picking up the broken glass and wiping up the spilled wine, Sameen slipped to the counter and took a tiny sip from Larry’s abandoned glass.

The wine was bitter, much more so than it was supposed to be.

She made her way back to Root without anyone noticing she ever moved. That had to be an upside of knowing pretty much nobody. No one paid attention to her.

“Strychnine. In the wine,” she whispered in Root’s ear.

“Ooh, it’s getting interesting,” Root said, a bit too eagerly.

“My bet is on Laurel. She seemed a little too upset he didn’t drink the wine.”

“Hmm.” Root didn’t seem quite convinced. “Or she was upset that Larry’s wife isn’t caring enough.”

Shaw frowned.

“She’s in love with him, right. So it’s not about the promotion?”

“I don’t know,” Root said under her breath. “We just have to stick around and find out.”

With that, she dragged Shaw in the middle of the gathering, straight into hell of social interaction.

 

No encouragement was needed to have the group – especially the women – focus on Root and Shaw once they had thrown themselves in the middle of it. They were, after all, new gossip material, and most of them were the kind of people who breathed other people’s business. Larry and his work friends quickly fell into a conversation of their own, interested only in business of the financial sort. That left two people who didn’t seem to be part of either group – Laurel and her date Alan (who Shaw figured wasn’t her boyfriend, though not for lack of trying on his part). The two seemed mildly annoyed; she with Nancy, and he with the fact that his date was treating him like he was air.

“So how did you two meet?,” Kate, who was married to Larry’s friend George and was clearly the biggest gossip of them all, asked their newest acquaintances. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, like she was getting ready to hear the most fascinating story in the universe.

Shaw could barely restrain herself from rolling her eyes.

“At work,” Root said sweetly, taking Shaw’s hand tenderly. “It was a- missing person case.”

“She wanted me to give her some information, but I didn’t have it, and-“ Shaw paused, glancing at Root. She wasn’t sure how exactly she was expected to play along.

“And it wasn’t a very nice first meeting,” Root finished for her. “But then we met again and-“

The whole group was listening intently, waiting for a romantic happy ending. Sameen wasn’t going to give them that.

“And I shot you.” She mimed Root’s expression as faithfully as she could.

The other women gasped.

“You didn’t!,” Nancy exclaimed. Shaw noticed in her peripheral vision that Laurel huffed with irritation.

“She did,” Root said in a voice full of adoration, and pointed to a faint white scar on her left shoulder. “Right here. Not without reason, I would’ve done something stupid if she hadn’t.”

The group cooed, as if they were watching a baby animal doing something ridiculously cute.

“So how did you end up together?,” Nancy pressed, getting louder and more tactile with each sip of wine. By now she was glued uncomfortably close to Shaw’s side, closer even than Root.

“Well- it was a process,” Root said.

“By which she means she wouldn’t leave me alone,” Shaw added, trying to seem involved in the conversation and keeping watch of the group of stock brokers, whose discussion was getting a little more heated.

“It worked, though, didn’t it?,” Nancy said with a laugh.

Root smiled at her, her face a perfect mask of sweetness. To Shaw, it was clear this was nothing more than a façade. She also knew her words stung.

“She wasn’t all that immune to my charm,” Root answered finally. She wanted to add something, but bit her tongue.

Then, the group’s conversation got interrupted by the men. George’s voice rose over all others, startling everyone, and completely stunning Larry, who looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Do you know why your wife is so excited for your promotion? Why she’s so happy?,” George was yelling. “Because she has no idea what the hell she’s talking about! The board must have lost their minds to give the position to you! I’ve always had better results than you! It’s just cause your father-in-law’s on the board that they would even consider your sorry ass for the position!”

As soon as he finished shouting, George looked around horrified. It didn’t seem like he had planned to explode like that. Every pair of eyes in the room was staring at him in awkward silence, waiting for him to make his next move.

It took him a second to regain control of himself, raise his head up high and wave at his wife to stand up.

“Kate, we’re leaving,” he said, his voice barely holding steady.

Kate gave the others a small apologetic smile, but stood up and joined her husband on his way to the door. Midway, she turned around to gesture at Nancy that she would call her later.

“Okay, so that was awkward,” said Shaw the moment the doors closed after them.

No one contested that.

 

After another hour of small talk – more strained now when the gathering had been disrupted by George – made better only by some delicious mini-quiches, wore Shaw out like few things could. She felt their number was now safe enough for her to have a breather, so she went out onto the roof terrace.

The air was chilly and crisp, too cold already to have the party outside, but it was refreshing after hours spent in one room with way too many people. The terrace was empty and peaceful, with just the muted sounds of the conversations from inside and the usual noises of the city marring the calm.

Shaw breathed in deeply, cherishing the moment alone. She wished the case had turned out more interesting, but on the other hand, she had her own problems to think about. Maybe this was better.

She was just thinking about that situation from earlier, the way Root turned so serious and moved away from her, when the French door open, letting out a peel of laughter and a piece of muttered conversation. Shaw turned around to see a familiar slim, tall figure, hugging her arms to her chest to shield herself from the cold.

“I’m sorry about before,” Root said, as if she could read Sameen’s mind. “I know it’s not you don’t want to admit it, I know it’s just hard for you.”

Shaw dropped her gaze, breaking eye contact. It wasn’t Root who should be apologizing.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, looking up again. She felt uncharacteristically nervous. “There are things I can’t say, and it’s not because I definitely don’t feel them, I just don’t know if I do. What I know is, it sucked when you were dead. It was empty and stupid, and it was- The worst couple of weeks. And I know that. And I know that when you sent me that message, back when Samaritan was torturing me, that was what kept me going. These things I know. These things I can tell you. Other things- You deserve other things. But more than that, I think you deserve to be told the truth. And the truth is, I don’t know.”

Root didn’t interrupt her until she was finished; she just stared at her and let her talk. Her face was obscured in semi-darkness, making it difficult to read her expression, but as soon as silence fell again, she held out her hand to lace her fingers with Shaw’s.

“You don’t have to explain,” she said. “I knew what I was getting myself into, didn’t I?”

She smiled at her widely, genuinely this time. With what felt a lot like relief, Shaw pushed herself forward, kissing Root on the mouth, almost throwing her out of balance.

They didn’t know how much time had passed, with their mouths joined and chasing each other, and with Root’s hands tangled in Sameen’s hair, when a shrill scream within the penthouse apartment made them jump apart. All they could see at first through the French windows was that Alan was suddenly in the center of the room, right in front of Larry.

Within seconds, they were rushing back inside.

“I honestly didn’t mean it like that!,” Larry was saying in a panicked voice. He was holding his hands up again, but this time in surrender.

“Like what? Like you treat her like shit?,” Alan replied furiously.

Getting back in, they could now see the reason behind the scream; Alan was holding a long, thin knife that he’d probably snatched off the kitchen counter. Either something had really set him off in the last few minutes, or what Shaw had taken for annoyance earlier was actually a quietly simmering anger that finally boiled over.

“I don’t, I swear! She’s- She’s my right hand!”

The defensiveness in Lawrence’s tone sounded desperate. Laurel snorted and got up to her feet abruptly. She didn’t seem as bothered by the knife as the others; maybe Alan acting volatile wasn’t news to her.

“Oh yeah, right hand.” She lifted her own right hand with just her index finger extended. “One, no raise in- ever. Two, I pick your dry cleaning, even when I would be of more use at the office. Three, I don’t think you’ve ever complimented me on my job. Even though I have never made a mistake. Not once. Four, I would’ve done anything for you, you prick!”

By the end of her speech, Laurel was on the brink of tears. She glanced at the rest of the guests, all of whom had frozen with terrified expressions on their faces and at Nancy, who was shaking and crying silently.

Alan put the knife at the base of Larry’s neck, causing Nancy to make another inhuman noise.

“Don’t encourage him!,” yelled one of the other women, whose name had already escaped Shaw’s memory.

“What do I care? I don’t even work for him anymore,” Laurel said, gesturing at Larry.

“Except, I’m pretty sure you’re still in love with him,” Shaw countered, drawing everyone’s attention to herself. Lawrence’s apparently former assistant looked scandalized, and Alan’s hand trembled over his victim’s Adam’s apple.

“What?!,” Nancy asked through broken sobs.

Shaw rolled her eyes, yanking her nine-millimeter handgun from its concealed holster on her thigh. There were gasps all over the room as she did that, though it only made her grow more impatient with those people.

“So, the way I see it,” she said, waving her gun casually, making everyone cringe and shrink within themselves, “Laurel here fell in love with her boss. How original. Even if your boss is a dick, that happens just way too often. She felt unwanted, ‘cause, surprisingly, Larry actually preferred his wife. Am I right?”

Larry nodded his head minutely and winced when the movement caused his skin to meet the cold edge of the blade.

“But then Alan fell in love with Laurel,” Shaw continued, “though I have no idea if either of them was a dick to one another. Possibly, judging by tonight. Laurel didn’t want Alan, what a sob story, but Alan was still desperate enough to win her heart that he tried to defend her honor by trying to kill the asshole boss that didn’t love her back.”

The room fell silent. Alan’s hand was trembling so much Shaw began to wonder if he wouldn’t flay Larry’s skin just by holding the knife. His eyes were bulging, but he didn’t say anything, shocked out of an ability to speak. Laurel stuck her gaze to the floor.

“Guess I got that right,” Shaw said. “So, Alan, can we call it quits and leave poor Larry to live out his days tormenting another assistant?”

He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the knife.

“No!”

“Then you leave me no choice.”

Sameen held her gun up, yet before she could pull the trigger, Alan fell to the ground in convulsions. Behind him stood Root, who must have snuck up while everyone was focused on Shaw. She had her taser in one hand and a cocktail in the other.

“Nice talk, Sam,” she said and bit the straw in her drink.

“What the hell was this?!,” Nancy whined.

“Actually,” Larry said to Shaw and Root, slightly out of breath and clutching his throat like it really had been slashed, “I just wanna know, how the hell did you know all this? And why did you bring a gun to the party?”

Root shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s kind of our job. And Shaw never leaves the house without a gun.” She took a sip out of her drink and went back casually to the seat she had abandoned. The people closest to her recoiled when she drew close, but she acted like she didn’t notice.

“And you probably should be grateful we came prepared,” Shaw added. “Oh, by the way, Laurel, if you decide to keep Alan around, you should be careful with your drinks.”

Everyone looked at her in confusion.

“Why is that?,” Laurel asked sneeringly. “And who says I want to keep this psycho around?”

“You didn’t seem to mind much when he went psycho,” Root pointed out, but she was ignored.

“Because before he pulled a knife, he put strychnine in Larry’s wine,” Shaw answered.

“What?”

The first person to react was Alan, still lying on the ground in a fetal position with a grimace on his face, but clearly with no loss of alertness. The rest of them looked at him with a mixture of terror and shock.

“The strychnine? The poison in Larry’s drink?,” said Shaw. “As far as I know tasing doesn’t cause amnesia.”

“I didn’t put anything in his drink. He just pissed me off when he said Laurel won’t be his assistant anymore after his promotion, after she’s been doing everything for him!”

“So you didn’t plan this?” Shaw raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Who did plan to kill Larry, then?”

For a moment, there was silence. Everybody in the room cast sideway glances at their friends, suddenly scared one of them was a wannabe murderer.

“You said someone put poison in Larry’s drink, right?,” one of the men asked. Shaw remembered him being introduced as Rob, Larry’s college roommate and best friend.

“Yeah,” Sameen said. “Did you see anyone near the glass?”

“Not really, no, but there is someone who would definitely know how to poison someone.” Rob made a dramatic pause, like he was on a detective show on TV and he was waiting for commercials to roll in.

“Who?,” Shaw prompted him.

Before Rob could reply, Larry seemed to have figured it out, and Root got the expression that unmistakably meant the Machine was talking to her.

“George,” Root said, stealing Rob’s thunder. “He studied chemistry for a year before changing his major to economics, because his father thought it would give him better opportunities. Of course, that was because old Mr. Jennings never managed to make a career in the stock market, so he pushed his dreams on his son.”

Everyone except Shaw gaped at her.

“I was just about to say that,” Rob said. “How did you know all that?”

“I have my ways,” Root told him, dropping her eyes humbly.

“You must make some damn good P.I.s, you two.” Larry’s voice was full of amazement.

Shaw smiled.

“Hell yeah.”

 

It was almost three in the morning when Root and Shaw finally made it back to the safehouse. The remainder of the party was spent on notifying Lionel where to find George, making sure Alan would go to anger management classes (Root exercised her ability to be absolutely terrifying to achieve that, and she knew the Machine would let her know if he didn’t listen), and everyone trying to get their new favorite personal investigators to share juicy details of their work. They edited their stories in such a way that no one could figure out the involvement of an all-seeing ASI or pick up on their anti-social tendencies.

“It wasn’t so bad, was it?,” Root asked, when she slipped into bed next to Shaw, wrapping her arm around her.

“Only because we had a number. And I could have my gun.”

“You didn’t get to use it, though.” Root propped her head on her hand and watched Shaw’s profile in the almost completely dark bedroom; she kept her eyes closed, clearly as a sign she wanted to sleep, but Root still had things to tell her. “You could’ve, but you didn’t. I appreciate that. Nancy probably does too, it would’ve been a mess.”

Sameen lifted her eyelids a millimeter and turned her head to Root.

“I know what low profile means. And I can control myself. And now, can I please have some sleep?”

“Of course.” Root smiled at her in the near darkness and kissed her on the lips.

They settled comfortably on the pillows, Root hugging Shaw to herself with her arm around her midriff. She didn’t close her eyes immediately, watching Sameen and feeling her breath evening out.

“I love you,” Root said quietly. It wasn’t the first time she’d ever said it, though she had always made sure Shaw didn’t hear her.

This time she thought the same,  and then the answer rang out in the quiet.

“I know.”


End file.
